On Sunday, I sat down to watch "60 Minutes" just to catch Anderson Cooper's piece on Don Blankenship, the coal CEO convicted of conspiring to willfully violate mine safety laws after 29 miners died in an explosion in West Virginia in 2010. Unfortunately, that charge is only a misdemeanor and Blankenship will serve less than a year, most likely. 

It reminded me of an article I wrote for this community just a couple of years ago when rescuers were busy pulling people from another mining disaster, this time in Turkey.

I wanted to share that again here today as we reflect on Blankenship's story.

As rescuers in Turkey struggle to reach hundreds of trapped miners hemmed in by dirt and fire today, I sit at my desk staring at one small "gift" of the world's coal mining effort-a statue of a coal miner (made from coal itself) that my grandfather brought home from a 1980s trip through his own personal history.

And, of course, in the wee hours of this morning, the only reason I can even see that tiny little miner on the desk is because of another major coal-mining "gift"-electric power.

I understand the continued importance of coal in the power equation, and I fully support the choice of miners to do a rough and dangerous job for their own rewards.

But, each new accident brings me personal pause-whether it is a flooded mine far away in China or a homegrown blast in West Virginia that killed 29.

After the report of each personal and heart-wrenching disaster, I admit that I stare at that tiny statue for long stretches. I trace the outlines with my fingers. It helps me think.

Coal mining is very personal to me. In my family, it's a legacy. Some legacies go to Harvard. Some inherit old money. Some just get a really cool and complicated surname.

Our family legacy, on the other hand, seems to be more rooted in the Earth: Everyone in my family has been impacted by coal mining-even ones like me who never saw the inside of a mine.

Arguments about whether we need more regs or OSHA oversight or what the human cost of power is isn't for this space today, though. I'm not here to lecture anyone or to take sides in a debate that I'm sure has valid and practical points on both sides. Instead, I want to tell you my family's personal story-because despite never having dug a single chunk of black out of the ground, every disaster has me palpably reliving old tales my grandfather spoke of a million times. 

And now that my grandfather and my grandmother and most of our family in that generation have moved on, what's left is the story about life rather than the life itself. In many cases, those are very good stories-as is this one. 

As a writer, I can tell you that stories are as alive as the people who tell them: They grow. They shrink. They eat. They purge. They take on mythic aspects and right old wrongs. They sometimes remember the wrong details with the right emotions or the wrong emotions with the clinical details. They are as alive as the people who tell them.

They even breathe-by that, I mean they have a rhythm and a cadence and a time when the reader sees himself in the story or even sees something new: a "hold the breath" moment or two.

This personal family story I'm about to tell you, especially, breathes. It has to-as coal itself "breathes."

If you live outside of a mining community, "black damp" may be a new term for you. Black damp is every miner's ultimate fear. It's the slow replacement of oxygen in the air by toxic gases. And it can sneak up on a miner. Black damp isn't restricted to coal mining. It can happen in any tight, cramped, sealed space, but coal makes black damp worse because coal actually begins to "inhale" oxygen once exposed to air. 

And, in a tight mine shaft, sometimes a miner and the coal he's mining fight for the air to breathe.

My grandfather was there-tussling with a black rock for enough oxygen for all to get along. He was a coal miner for a number of reasons: It was the reigning industry in his hometown. He needed a good job after World War II, and coal mining was solid, steady work-few layoffs, few firings. 

And, it was in his blood. His father was a coal miner. And his grandfather. 

As I said, some families inherit riches. We inherited black rocks tumbling through the veins. But, my grandfather was the end of that tradition-not because of the great, looming fear of black damp-though, yes, it always loomed. It still looms, though we have much better equipment to fight that these days. Still, black damp is a miner's Sword of Damocles. 

In the end, though, my grandfather's severing moment didn't come from the slow creep of black damp. It was more sudden, tragic and similar to the Turkish disaster today.

There was a collapse. There was a collapse at the Centralia Coal Company's No. 5 mine on March 26, 1947. I've never been to Centralia. I've never seen the mine. I wasn't alive in March of 1947. Heck, my mother wasn't even alive in March of 1947. But, we all know the stats in this family: where, when, and how many.

The how many was 111.

One hundred and eleven men were killed in that 1947 coal mine collapse. At that point in history, it was the worst mining disaster in a generation. Now it's been eclipsed by many, many generations and many, many coal mining disasters.

But, that one in Centralia: It's the one that defines me and my family. Why? Because my grandfather should have been there.

If he had been there, my mother wouldn't exist and neither would I. If he had been there, my grandmother would have been a young widow missing both a husband and a father-in-law.

My grandfather wasn't there because he was young and maybe a bit tired from a dinner out or distracted by his own youth and all the things he wanted to do in life rather than go to work in a hole in the ground that day. So, he was running a bit behind.

But his father wasn't. His stoic father who never missed a day of work, was never sick, was never distracted, who taught my grandfather how to truly live an honest day's work for an honest day's pay.

He was there on time for his honest day's work-perhaps even early. Why do I think that? Because my great-grandfather was the second to last person recovered in the digging efforts-one of the farthest down the shaft-at the frontline of things.

It may be fantasy, but there is a real sense of family honor in thinking that my grandfather's father went out of this world the same way he lived in this world-working hard, striving forward, giving it his all and not looking back.

But, again, those may simply be family stories that have a life all their own and I've given them new breath with each retelling.

Still, whenever there is another mine disaster like the one in Turkey this week, my first thought isn't a bevy of potential debates on clean energy or whether coal has to remain king of power production despite the dangers. It's about how those people are so like my great grandfather-working hard, striving forward, just trying to make a living.

They may be half a world away. They may have different cultures, beliefs or religions. But, in the end, they are all a part of my family and carry that legacy forward. 

Today, I will, once again, run my fingers over that coal miner statue of my grandfather's, as I do with every mining disaster. And, as I also do with every mining disaster, I'm going to rub the tip of his miner's hat twice-like you might the belly of a Hotei statue-for luck. 

 

http://www.energybiz.com/article/16/03/personal-legacy-king-coal